


Patron Saints of Blissful Imperfection

by bluebeholder



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Fantastic Racism, Hurt/Comfort, No Smut, POV Multiple, Politics, Rated For Violence, Romance, Tragedy, War, i cannot stress hard enough that this is a tragedy, please go in with your eyes open, thanks solas, there's no tag for 'the logistics of actually running the inquisition' so there you go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:07:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29513661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: “Since childhood, I’ve been faithful to monsters. I have been saved and absolved by them, because monsters, I believe, are patron saints of our blissful imperfection, and they allow and embody the possibility of failing."- Guillermo del ToroAfter the failure of his plan at the Conclave, Solas joins the Inquisition in order to stay close to the imposing Inquisitor, a Qunari who is now the key to his success. Inquisitor Kubide Adaar, lonely on the throne, ends up reaching out to the odd little hedge mage who seems to understand her as well as she understands herself. It's not long before they're standing together in a strange world that wants neither of them.But the weight of power can break the strongest hero's shoulders, and the force of grief can drive the strongest will to desperation.Updates Wednesdays and Saturdays.
Relationships: Dragon Age: Inquisition Advisors & Female Inquisitor, Dragon Age: Inquisition Inner Circle & Female Inquisitor, Female Adaar/Solas (Dragon Age)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There are two people to whom I owe great thanks. First, my beta reader [Pyxyl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pyxyl), who did an incredible job helping me to polish this into something much better than it originally was. Second, [adrift_me](https://archiveofourown.org/users/adrift_me/pseuds/adrift_me), who is...quite honestly the reason I finished this story at all. She was my cheerleader. Kept me going through the rough patches, cried and laughed over the story, and listened to all my ranting and rambling every day.
> 
> Re: tag for "fantastic racism." Solas is terrible about the Qunari for a significant portion of this story, starting right here in this chapter. He has some SERIOUS growing to do. I do promise that a reckoning is coming on that point. 
> 
> Without further ado, let's get this party started.

Green light flashes.

The rift snaps closed.

Silence falls.

After a few breaths, the mercenary, dark demon blood dripping down her cheek, turns and looks down at Solas, breathing hard. “What the _fuck_ ,” she demands as he lets go of her wrist and steps back, “was _that_?”

Solas follows the script: a rift in the Veil, likely caused by whatever created the Breach, which permits demons to enter the world. The glowing green mark on the mercenary’s hand is connected to these rifts. It can, apparently, close them.

The words are nearly identical to those he gave the Hands of the Divine. They are tailor-made to assuage anyone’s fears and make him unassuming, scholarly, and mundane. They also give Solas time to take the mercenary’s measure.

She is a member of the Valo-Kas company, exiled Qunari hired to guard the Conclave. At a distance, she was menacing. Up close, she is more so. Solas is of a reasonable height—a few inches below six feet in modern measurements—but she is nearly _seven and a half_ feet tall. Grey skin marks her out against pale humans. Her horns, dark brown, long and goat-like, curve back over a head of thick white curls, and her hands are clawed. When she smiles, it’s with a flash of sharp teeth.

Of all the creatures he’d expected to disrupt his plans, this little dragon was not one of them.

When Solas has finished his explanation and the Seeker steps in to direct the next moves, he continues to take the mercenary’s measure. The smudged remains of red war paint on her forehead, the bridge of her aquiline nose, her strong jaw. A powerful build to match her height: thick neck, massive shoulders and arms, large thighs. Her body is thick, middle apparently soft, but Solas watched her swing that sword, which is longer than he is _tall_ , with perfect ease. Large, callused hands. Deep voice, which overpowers anyone else’s; posture of absolute confidence.

A problem.

If this disaster had to occur, if someone _had_ to have the key to the Veil fused with their hand, Solas would have preferred someone else. There were plenty of humans, plenty of dwarves, even a few elves. All of them he could have handled.

But a Qunari? They are a notoriously stubborn people. Devoted to order and routine to the exclusion of any ability of critical thought. Living lives that, by design, are nasty, savage, brutish, and short.

Dealing with one of them will be frustrating, at best.

He watches the people of Haven, faith shaken, turn to the mercenary they already call the Herald of Andraste. She should have stumbled. Instead she shoulders the responsibility, as stern and confident as if she asked for it. After mere hours, the leaders of this…Inquisition…turn to her like flowers to the sun.

“I didn’t get your name,” she says, when the sun is going down.

He inclines his head. “Solas.”

She smiles. Her eyes are startling, black sclera and bright yellow irises. “Kubide. I look forward to working with you.”

Solas cannot say he returns the sentiment.

-

There’s no time to grieve.

But _oh_ , Kubide wishes there was.

She lost twenty friends at the Conclave. Her last memory of them is of getting them to their assigned posts before heading off to do a final sweep of the Temple. They had laughed. Joked. Asala, their youngest, was nervous about being a mage in the Chantry stronghold. Kubide remembers promising to come back and protect her.

There isn’t even a fucking _body_ left to protect.

 _No one_ , except Kubide, survived.

But there’s no time for grief. No time for tears. No time to do anything but get her feet under her and hit the ground running.

In thirty-six years, Kubide has seen more of the world than many twice her age. She overheard Shokrakar informing Meraad, disgruntled that he didn't get the Conclave job, that she picked Kubide for it not just because she’s imposing but because she “has a good head on her shoulders.” Kubide tries to live up to that.

She’s played negotiator (once matching wits with the Prince of Starkhaven over a job), dealt with shrewd merchants and cheating clients, and done her best to lead her friends smartly in battle. Kubide is no leader of an army, but is more than capable of handling a small group she knows well. She spent most of the last two years guiding the Valo-Kas out of the line of literal fire, negotiating their way past Templars and mages ready to kill anyone in their path, talking her way out of fights they couldn’t hope to win.

This, though…this is worse than that. Out there, people just want to survive. In here, everyone has a fucking agenda. They see Kubide as a tool. She’s not _blind_. Or deaf. The three advisors are courteous, of course, but wary. They don’t call her an ox, but it’s a close thing with Commander Rutherford. Would the Seeker have locked a human in chains, threatened them with death? If they were a mage, maybe, but otherwise…they’d be innocent until further notice. Kubide didn’t even get the benefit of the doubt.

Bitter experience tells her that this better treatment is unlikely to last long.

So she speaks carefully. Mimics the somber stares of Chantry statues and stumbles through a pretense of revealed devotion. Pretends the Anchor doesn’t sting and burn even when the Breach isn’t flaring brighter in the sky. Plays the role of a mercenary out of her depth (which is only _partly_ a lie) and emphasizes that she’s a _warrior_ , not a courtier.

They don’t notice. Why would they? After all, _she’s_ just a Qunari.

Days drag on. The Breach is not closed. Kubide plays her role.

And wonders if she’ll _ever_ have time to cry.

-

“You are reading Varric’s book?”

The surprise in the Seeker’s voice is apparent. Solas looks up from the book, closing it. “There is little else to read here.”

“Fair,” the Seeker admits. She folds her arms. “Still, I did not take you for the sort to enjoy novels.”

“It is well-written,” Solas says. He stands up, leaving the book on the table. It will not be disturbed: very few come here. What passes for a library in Haven is small and cramped. Despite residing within the Chantry, it is full of decidedly non-theological works. Considering the tedium of life in these mountains, Solas cannot say he is surprised.

“Varric’s works are quite popular.”

Solas mirrors the Seeker’s posture. “Rightly so, I think. Have you read them?”

“I have… _skimmed_ ,” she says delicately.

The faint flush of color on her cheeks says she has done far more than that. He restrains a smile. “I would recommend this one. Our resident author has interesting views on the world.”

The Seeker shakes her head. “That much I know,” she says. “He is _not_ shy with his opinions.”

“It seems that Varric believes quite strongly in liberty.”

“He is a rogue and scoundrel, just like his heroes,” the Seeker says, with admirable dismissiveness. “There is no philosophy to be found in his books.”

Solas would disagree, but arguing the point with her would be a waste of time. It is interesting, he muses as he leaves the library, that Varric is so attached to this world. His lavish descriptions of beauty, the dogged determination of his heroes, the themes of liberty and the pursuit of a ‘good life’—it is not what he would have expected to see from the pen of a dwarf.

Once, their empire was great. Solas had visited its thaigs during the height of the empire’s power. The artistry and beauty of the subterranean realm was without peer. In this modern age, just as the elves, it is clear that the dwarves have lost much of what they once were. Yet Varric’s stories are dismissive of such notions, focusing on the opportunities of the future and the chance of great things to come.

It is not what Solas expected. At least the Dalish look to their past. These surface dwarves, however, seem fully willing to forget their history.

That _bothers_ Solas. Not because of the shortsightedness of such forgetting; that is to be expected. But the idea that this world could be _better_ than the past when so much has been lost…it is preposterous.

-

“And…why do I have to be here for you to get things done?” Kubide asks, looking down at the three humans.

“You are the Herald,” Lady Montilyet says. Somehow, even though she’s _incredibly_ short, she manages not to make it look like she’s craning her neck to meet Kubide’s eyes. “You are critical to our success.”

“I’m not some kind of diplomat,” Kubide points out. “The Anchor didn’t magically make me _good_ at any of this.”

“We at least need the appearance of your input,” Sister Leliana says, eyes narrow and arms folded over her chest.

Commander Rutherford nods. “Leliana is quite right. Our soldiers will look to the Herald of Andraste for guidance.”

Kubide rubs her face with the not-Anchor hand. Sure, it doesn’t feel any different from the rest of her skin, but getting that burning green glow near her face seems like a shit idea. “Right. I just think it’s important to say, _again_ , that I didn’t fucking ask for this.”

“ _None_ of us did,” Sister Leliana says, “but the time to argue about it is past.”

“We must do whatever is necessary to close the Breach, whether we enjoy the task or not,” Commander Rutherford says. He turns to the long table, where a map is spread out. “Now. There is trouble in the Hinterlands, reports of small rifts in the Fade.”

“And letters,” Lady Montilyet says, setting a small stack down on the table, “from people who want to hear from the Herald of Andraste.”

“We must also discuss our agents,” Sister Leliana adds.

The easiest option would be to turn and walk out the fucking door.

She’s a figurehead and _everyone_ in this room knows it. And, while it’s not exactly _fun_ to stand up and pretend she’s had some kind of miracle conversion thanks to a prophet, Kubide is fine with doing that job. Stand on the front lines, look stern, use the Anchor to close the Breach whenever they manage to get to it.

This, though.

 _This_ is giving her a headache.

Part of Kubide wants to drop it now. Refuse to engage. They couldn’t _stop_ her.

But she can’t walk away from the fucking Anchor. She can’t _hide_ from that. None of this shit is going to just go away if she informs them that she’s not the Herald, the Maker doesn’t have a place for her in a divine plan, and she’s not fit for this kind of job. Kubide will still be stuck in Haven.

And she knows _damn_ well that they have a cell ready and waiting.

“Right,” she says, rubbing the base of one horn where a headache is starting to flare. “Let’s…start with the agents.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Proper research footnotes will return after this chapter. There wasn't much going on here except setup and introductions!


	2. Chapter 2

It has been a fortnight since the Temple of Sacred Ashes exploded and Solas has yet to get a proper look at the Anchor. At a distance, yes, but nothing close enough to determine its properties or the scale of its connection to the Breach. He must know things beyond conjecture. Of course, it is _educated_ conjecture, since the Anchor is intimately connected to his orb, but still. He must speak to the Herald.

Finding her is easy. Head and shoulders above the crowd, the Herald could never hope to blend in. Solas had expected obliviousness from her—that she would not notice the stares or the whispers of ‘ox’ and ‘demon.’ Yet, though her discomfort is well-hidden, Solas is watching her closely enough to see it.

Generally, she is quiet among others, watching rather than speaking. Any suggestions from her advisors are taken immediately. She does not argue with them. The Herald, it seems, prefers not to think for herself. With that in mind, Solas is sure that his suggestions, too, will be easily accepted.

Solas finds her at the palisade one evening, looking out at the landscape. The snow is yet to melt, but such is life in the mountains. “A word, Herald?” he says, coming to stand beside her.

“Kubide, please,” she says, without looking down at him.

“Very well,” Solas says after an uncomfortable pause, “Kubide. I have an idea I wished to share.”

“Go on.”

“I have knowledge of the Fade,” he says, “and I believe that studying the Anchor more closely will allow me to make better recommendations on how best to seal the Breach.”

Kubide holds up her hand, the Anchor flickering on her palm. “Could just cut this off.” It does not sound like a joke.

“I would be burned at the stake for harming Andraste’s chosen prophet.”

“Don’t give me that,” Kubide says, suddenly harsh. Solas looks up and finds himself caught in a hard glare. Those startling eyes, again, make him flinch. They are…terrible to behold. Yellow on black, utterly alien. “You’re not Andrastian. And even if you were, you’re too smart to buy the shit they’re selling.”

Solas resists the desire to take a step back. This is the closest he’s been to her since the day they met. The sheer _scale_ of this woman—her hands must be as large as his _face_. “I agree with you.”

She stares down at him. “Of course you do,” she says. “It always sounds like you know what’s really happening here. You _still_ haven’t told us where you came from.”

“I was at the Temple to—”

“I know what you _said_ ,” Kubide says, folding her arms. “You’re not telling the whole story.”

Well.

Apparently she is thinking more than he expected.

And has more of a spine, too.

“None of us are,” Solas says.

Kubide turns back to look over the palisade. She looks _over_ the palisade, which is taller than the tallest humans of Haven. “You know where to find me if you want to talk about the Anchor.”

He will find her.

And he will have to be _much_ more careful with her than he thought.

-

Growing up, far from saarebas and Circles, Kubide always had an image of apostate mages as mysterious figures, wielding fire in one hand and holding the leashes of demons in the other. That was quickly dispelled on joining the Valo-Kas, counting ex-saarebas and apostate Vashoth mages among their number. Instead of mystery, there’s a certain haunted look among them, a readiness to violence in their hands. Understandable. The world’s given them every reason to be wary.

Which is one of the things that makes Solas so fucking _weird_.

He isn’t wary, any more than is reasonable for an apostate elf standing in a Chantry stronghold between the Right and Left Hands of the Divine. He openly disdains violence. He certainly isn’t _haunted_. In fact, Kubide has rarely met anyone this arrogant.

It’s an arrogance damn well earned, she muses, considering that he’s the only one with any kind of idea of how the Breach and Anchor work. Anyone else who might have information died in the Conclave explosion, so Solas is what they’ve got. He always dances around just _how_ he learned this all this shit. But he hasn’t been wrong about anything, no matter how weird, yet, so Kubide is content to let it go. For now.

Taking his measure, he’s inoffensive. Tall for an elf (though his head doesn’t even reach her shoulder), but thin—even, maybe, scrawny—with sharp, starved features, bald and making no attempt to conceal the fact. Going shoeless even in the early spring snow of Haven, wearing battered clothes, including the most _grandfatherly_ knitted tunic, with only the jawbone of a wolf hanging around his neck standing out as odd. Carrying a plain and simple staff, nothing flashy. Always smelling vaguely herbal, with the overlay of lightning that all mages have.

He’s soft-spoken, prone to academic lectures and blunt statements on the many things that irritate him. Unless he’s in battle, throwing around blasts of energy and raising spirits, he couldn’t look any _less_ dangerous.

“Seriously, where did you come from?” she asks him one late evening, in the middle of talking about her experiences with the Anchor. Not the first time she’s asked the question, but it’s worth another shot.

Solas looks up from his chicken-scratch notes. His handwriting is, to put it mildly, horrible. When Kubide sees it from the pen of such a composed man, she finds it a bit charming. “A small village,” he says, “as I’ve told you before.”

“Yes, but _where_?” Kubide asks. She smiles at him. “Orlais? The Free Marches? You might even be from the fucking _Anderfels_ , I wouldn’t know.”

“I’ve put it out of my mind,” Solas says. He stands up, gathering his things, not looking at her. “I will not be returning there, so it is irrelevant. That is all the information I require. Thank you, Herald.”

Cagey bastard.

-

Solas _may_ have miscalculated in giving the orb to Corypheus.

No: he _did_ miscalculate.

He underestimated the intelligence and cunning of the dazed creatures of this world. The kind of power which Corypheus wields is, while nothing near the power Solas would command at full strength, enough to unlock and use the orb, and to survive the explosion of potential magic which _should_ have gone to Solas, if the plan went as intended.

Instead, the power to control the Veil—to heal it and, if Solas is correct in his guess, to _open_ it—is attached to the hand of the Herald.

Were he stronger, Solas might expedite this whole process by overcoming the Herald and forcing her to use the Anchor according to his designs. He is _not_ stronger, however; waking from the slumber in which he spent the last few thousand years, a slumber that to the ancient elves was the functional equivalent of mortal death, took most of his energy. Solas was lucky: his skill as a Dreamer allowed him to sustain himself with the energy of the Fade, which prevented his death when mortality descended upon the elves. Still, he is far from what he _should_ be.

The point is that, with the Veil in the way, Solas will have to _wait_.

Patience has never been his virtue.

Yet he schools himself to bide his time. This Inquisition—so far, unwittingly—opposes Corypheus, which means they work toward Solas’ end. He has established himself as an authority on the matter of the Breach, which makes him indispensable. These guileless mortals, would-be heroes, busy with their task, believe his vague personal history. The Herald is wary of him, but her attention on other issues keeps her from pressing further. Solas is in a perfect position to wait.

This is a race of endurance, _not_ speed. It is not the first time that Solas has run such a race, though, and in the last race he started with an even greater disadvantage than he now holds. He won—for the high price that he now means to repay—and he will win again.

Corypheus has the orb. Solas has the Herald, the key to that orb. All that needs to be done now is to bring the two together.

And then Solas will finish what Corypheus started.

-

At Dwarfson’s Pass in the Hinterlands, Commander Rutherford wants to establish a camp for observation and defense. Scouts said there were rifts in the area. Everyone agreed this was a good time for Kubide to test out the Anchor again. So off they went, expecting an easy time of it.

A rage demon roars. Wraiths screech. The stench of blood and the acrid smell of the Fade fill the air. The twang of Varric’s crossbow and the spirit howl of Solas’ barriers mix with the scared battle cries of the soldiers.

“Retreat!” Cassandra shouts. “ _Retreat_!”

The soldiers turn and run. The wraiths cackle with horrid glee and someone screams. Halfway up the hill, bleeding from a gash on her leg, Kubide rips her sword free of the collapsing body of a second rage demon and looks up to see one of the soldiers in the claws of a wraith. He screams.

“ _Help me_!”

Kubide throws herself down the slope, tripping over sliding stones, crashing to the ground at the bottom. She stumbles to her feet, leg threatening to give out, clutching her sword in both hands, and charges the wraith. Cruel eyes meet hers and it drops the soldier to the ground. He doesn’t move.

A blast of demonic fire hits Kubide in the shoulder. She screams, smells her skin burning, blistering, _charring_. The wraith lunges at her. Its claws clatter against her sword as she blocks its first strike through a haze of agony, reeling, back on her heels.

It cackles, rearing for a killing blow. Before it can strike, Kubide drives her sword through its chest. As it crumbles Kubide staggers the last few steps to the fallen soldier.

The rage demon roars, bearing down on her, jaws of fire gaping open.

Kubide drops her sword, slings the fallen soldier over her shoulders, and _runs_.

Lucky for them, the demons don’t have much interest wandering far from the rift. A few hundred yards and they turn back, leaving the Inquisition to limp away.

“Fuck _that_ ,” Kubide says, when Solas, face bruised from a fall, is helping her attend to the burn on her shoulder. “Let’s just…put up a fucking fence or something.”

“ _Agreed_ ,” Solas says.

Of course, they can’t just let it go. Cassandra sends back to Haven for a physician and for reinforcements. They go back and, this time, Kubide manages to close the rift. They raise a toast to her for that, but the only thing that matters to her is that Aederic, the soldier she carried, survived.

-

After some weeks with her, it is hard not to be inspired by the Herald of Andraste. Ridiculous as the idea of the Maker is, and ridiculous as the idea that He has somehow chosen a new prophet is, _she_ is far from ridiculous. For a Qunari, she is also much more thoughtful and level-headed than he expected. Kubide is incapable of lying—which is frequently to her detriment, in this political quagmire—but her honesty _does_ garner her respect. If she is prone to swearing, well…she is a soldier among soldiers.

It seems that _every person_ within a hundred miles comes to her to beseech her for aid, and she treats every petitioner with the same compassion. Solas finds himself led out into the Hinterlands to herd lost sheep home just as often as he follows her to close rifts and defeat demons. Kubide looks on nobles and peasants the same way, treating them as equals whether they come begging the blessing of the Maker or to sneer and scoff at the “ox-man.” Due to her role on the front lines, the soldiers begin to look to her, though she has no formal command.

They love her for it. This ragtag band of lost souls who need guidance move to her like steel to a magnet. Even those who fight her, disdain her, do not try to _leave_ her.

Despite himself, Solas cannot help a certain fascination with her. His experience with Qunari has been…limited, to say the least. By choice. There is little he wishes to know of _anyone_ in this world, least of all these savage children of Ghilan’nain, clinging to the Qun. Yet, as the child of exiles, the Herald has no connection to her past. She stands apart from everyone.

Since he is doing his best to stay near the Anchor, Solas spends a fair amount of time with Kubide. The Anchor’s behavior changes subtly day by day and he must understand its workings. Sometimes it hurts her, and other times she reports exhilaration with its use. Both are worrisome, in their own way.

As a result Solas comes to understand her perhaps more than the rest. Late in the evening the mantle of leadership falls from her powerful shoulders and she removes the mask of the Herald. The power she expresses in front of soldiers and diplomats, the posture expected of a Qunari, vanishes. Her startling yellow eyes close and her resounding voice quiets. She is weary.

And it discomforts him, to feel such sympathy for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I refuse to be sorry about the hand joke.
> 
> “The smell of lightning” is just ozone. But that word wasn’t coined until 1840 by a German chemist. The state of the non-magical sciences in southern Thedas is…questionable at best. They have pretty decent metallurgy judging by the armor, but human biology is still in the “humors and leeches” stage. So someone in southern Thedas inventing the term “ozone” is unlikely. I’d be willing to bet that there’s a Tevene translation for it (given the neon lights and all) and probably a term in Qunlat, but I’m sincerely doubtful that it’d happen anywhere else. “Lightning” is as good as it gets.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **TW:** brief mention of menstruation in the story, whole long discourse on fictional reproductive biology in the end notes.

“We aren’t putting any of our money toward my damn wardrobe,” Kubide says. “Our soldiers need _coats_ more than I need sashes and ruffles, Lady Montilyet.”

She, in her fine clothes with a hint of that lovely Antivan perfume in a cloud around her, eyes Kubide. “Pardon my bluntness, Herald, but you hardly look the part.”

Kubide looks down at herself. Well-worn brown leather boots, knee-high, with greaves strapped on. Rough trousers, fading from blue to grey, tucked into the boots, held with a heavy leather belt just above her hips. Long-sleeved halter shirt of stained, off-white linen, cut off to bare her midriff. Long, quilted coat of red-and-yellow checked wool lined with sheepskin, worn open because Josephine’s office is warm, with patched elbows, fraying hems, and a few missing buttons. Vambraces peeking out, since Kubide is about to head out into the Hinterlands again. Heavy wool gloves. It’s far from unusual, as mercenary gear goes. _And_ she doesn’t smell.

“It works,” she says with a shrug. “I’m warm. Haven’t died yet.”

“You should at least consider dressing more…ah…”

“More what?” Kubide asks with a smile she doesn’t exactly feel. “Nobly? We can’t _afford_ finery, especially not when I’ll end up ruining it in a fight.”

Lady Montilyet doesn’t sigh, but her pursed lips express displeasure more than adequately. “As you wish, Herald. I’ll make a note to put the money toward winter gear for our men.”

“Thank you,” Kubide says. “Truly. If you still need me after the Breach is closed, and if we can get the funds, I’ll let you get me a tailor.”

“I shall hold you to that,” the lady says, giving Kubide a slight smile.

Kubide buttons up her coat as she steps back out into the chilly day. Her breath is in clouds and the smell of morning frost lingers. Even late spring here isn’t _warm_. In fact, it’s _fucking freezing_ out here. Giving the money Lady Montilyet wanted to spend on Kubide to the quartermaster will make sure that everyone at least has warm stockings. No need for frostbite.

-

Of all the things Solas expected to kill him, a bear was _never_ on the list.

A trip to the Hinterlands—a simple trip to collect elfroot, which apparently only the Herald herself can do—ended in stumbling into the territory of an incredibly angry great bear.

It swatted Cassandra aside with a single paw, Varric wisely stayed out of distance but his crossbow quarrels cannot pierce its fur, and now here it is charging straight at Solas.

What an ignominious way to leave the world.

Kubide gets to him first. Solas yelps as she throws him over her shoulder and starts running. The bear is hot on their heels, but Solas can’t get his bearings quickly enough to cast a spell. All he can do is clutch his staff in both hands and hope Kubide doesn’t drop him.

The bear loses interest eventually, wandering away to do…whatever it is bears do. When it goes, Kubide sets Solas down. “Sorry about that,” she says, panting, “but I didn’t want to see you eaten.”

Solas will have a bruise on his _entire body_ from the jostling, but he chooses not to comment. “It would have been a ridiculous way to die.”

Varric and Cassandra stagger up, both breathing hard. “You’re alive!” Cassandra gasps out.

“ _Barely_ ,” Kubide says. A black and purple bruise blooms along her bare shoulder, and there are scratches on her hands.

“I thought we were gonna lose Chuckles,” Varric says, half bent over with hands on his knees.

Solas winces. “So did I.”

“Not happening on my watch,” Kubide says, grinning. Her eyes are bright and a little wild, though she’s breathing hard like the rest of them. Solas wonders how in the world she is still smiling.

“Do you have the elfroot?” Cassandra asks, straightening.

Kubide shakes her head. “I think we have to keep looking.”

“We have the most dignified adventures,” Solas says, as they head off into the woods again.

“Could be worse,” Varric says reflectively. “She _could_ have us running around sewers.”

“I think I would prefer sewers to _bears_.”

-

It’s funny, really, that she’d thought she led a busy life before the Conclave.

Daily life as a mercenary off the job had plenty to do. The Valo-Kas were— _are_ , wherever the rest are—one of the most disciplined companies out there. It wasn’t as strict as the Antaam, or so the former soldiers assured Kubide when they joined, but there was an _order_ to things. If a member wasn’t raised in the Qun, their parents had been. As a result, nobody argued about duty rosters or being expected to do what they were supposed to do. Even the Tal-Vashoth most insistent on getting away from their past appreciated having a specific role to play.

If they were in a long-term camp, there were the usual chores to do (latrine maintenance, cooking, equipment repair, and so on), plus combat practice alone and drill together. Without clocks they didn’t count every second, and all of them enjoyed plenty of leisure, but Kubide was rarely bored.

Life was even busier when traveling. Always something new to see on the road, even if they’d passed this way a dozen times before. There were other travelers to deal with, bandits to fight, dinners to hunt, wagons to repair when the old axles inevitably cracked again.

The Inquisition puts the Valo-Kas to _shame_.

Kubide is on her feet from dawn to dusk. Her fucking feet ache constantly from the running and the climbing when they’re traveling. The Hinterlands are beautiful, but she’s not there to relax: she’s there because they’ve got another bunch of rogue Templars attacking Inquisition camps or a band of renegade mages ambushing merchant travelers. In Haven, she’s standing for hours debating the Inquisition’s next move with her advisors, or training beside the soldiers, or awkwardly meeting with the minor dignitaries who come to see what all the fuss is about, or dealing with whatever new so-called crisis needs the Herald’s urgent attention.

She can’t remember the last time she just sat and did nothing.

Sleep hasn’t come easy lately, and not just because the bed is too small. Her thoughts won’t stop going in circles. Kubide hasn’t missed a course in over twenty years and suddenly there’s just _nothing_ , which brings its own special paranoia. The backaches are relieved by calisthenics, but they’re driving her up the fucking _wall_ anyway. Everything smells too strong, and the world is too bright.

The worst part is that it just gets busier by the day.

-

“ _Watch out_!”

At the shout, Solas looks up from the open book in his hands just as he trips straight over the stack of logs in the path.

The book flies from his hands as he falls. He hits the ground and lies there for a moment, winded, ankle twinging with pain. Worse than that, though, is the burning of embarrassment.

“I didn’t see until too late, sorry about that,” Scout Harding says, appearing beside him and offering a hand.

Solas lets her help him up. He dusts off his tunic. At least the snow has melted, so Haven is no longer a mud puddle. “I assume you were not the one to leave the logs?”

“No, someone just dropped them there, I guess,” Harding says. She offers him his book with an awkward smile. “Here you go.”

“Thank you,” Solas says, taking the book. The corner of the cover is folded like an accordion. “I take this path frequently.”

“I’ve noticed,” Harding says. She pauses and blushes red as an apple. “I mean, not that I’m watching you, I’m just saying I’m here often and you always go by at the same time every day, so…”

“I do,” Solas says, hoping to alleviate some of her visible discomfort. “It _is_ the quickest route up to return books to the Chantry.”

Harding smiles. Startled, Solas returns it. “You do read a lot, don’t you.”

“As much as I can,” Solas says. “It fills the time.”

“I don’t read terribly well,” Harding admits. “I know enough to write reports and all, but I never went to school. Too much else to do.”

“And you have become the Inquisition’s premier scout,” Solas says. “It seems that the world was a fine teacher.”

If possible, her smile gets brighter. “Thank you,” Harding says. “I think so, too.”

After a few more pleasantries, the young woman is on her way and Solas is on his. He pays _slightly_ more attention to where he walks. It would be ridiculous to have a similar accident right after the first.

With that attention to his surroundings, Solas cannot help but notice what a fine day it is. Late spring in the mountains has a certain chill, but the sun is bright and warm. Fearless ground squirrels dart about and birds sun themselves wherever there is space.

It seems Scout Harding’s good mood is shared by most of the people Solas sees. When they notice him, some wave. He returns the greetings with some discomfort. It is…unusual. Solas is still the only mage in the Inquisition, and one of a limited number of elves. He had not expected welcoming treatment, and had retreated further as a result.

Then again, he thinks with some ruefulness as he returns to the Chantry, perhaps his retreat had prevented what welcome he might have received otherwise.

Strange, that Solas would regret something like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let’s talk reproduction. Birds and bees.
> 
> There’s…a lot going on with the Qunari in general and there are a LOT of uncertainties and massive gaps in the lore. (Here, I’m using Qunari to just refer to the Tall Ones With Horns, for ease of reading.) Genetics in general in Thedas seem a bit chaotic. But we know a few things:
> 
> 1\. Humans and elves can have children. Humans and dwarves can have children. Unknown about elves and dwarves, but I’m guessing they can, just in general. Said children can ALSO have children, so there’s no weird genetic shit going on there. 
> 
> 2\. There are no known Qunari And Anyone Else children.
> 
> 3\. The Qunari practice extensive reproductive control. People have kids when the Qun demands, and the matches are set up by Tamassrans. Setting aside the uncomfortably eugenic overtones here, this means that presumably we won’t see children of a Qunari/elf or Qunari/human union, even in Qunari lands. 
> 
> 4\. However, humans, elves, and dwarves are still physically compatible with a Qunari. Thanks to Bull’s romance and to any Adaar romance, we get some…fairly clear details on the matter. Beyond that, the presence of secondary sex characteristics (and Dragon Age’s *marvelously* sexually dimorphic concept art) informs us that, children aside, Qunari are still basically mammals like everyone else (we’re NOT talking about evolution in Thedas, I’m not emotionally prepared).
> 
> All of that says that, whatever the fuck is going on with the gene pool there (and we’ll touch on THAT down the line, in Chapter 40), Qunari, like humans and presumably elves and dwarves, can menstruate. Which would imply, to me, that the effects of high stress on the body would still impact a Qunari the way it would a human.


	4. Chapter 4

By the time that summer arrives in earnest, the Inquisition could actually count as the force it claims to be.

Word’s gotten out and a whole lot of people have decided that this is important. They got a Grey Warden, Blackwall, who is perpetually melancholy and also knows every single campfire song Kubide ever heard from the Valo-Kas. They got Sera, who never agrees with Kubide on anything but the fact that this situation is _shit_ and the only people getting really hurt are poor and hungry to start with. And they got the Iron Bull, who’s the stuff of Kubide’s nightmares with a smile and a handsome face.

“He makes you uncomfortable,” Solas remarks one evening, while she’s informing him that the Anchor feels itchy, like it’s growing. It smells like lightning, too, and that acrid scent that always comes from Fade rifts.

Kubide snorts. “The Ben-Hassrath were the boogeymen in my bedtime stories as a kid,” she says. “ _Fuck_ yes, he makes me uncomfortable.”

Solas puts down his pen, observing her. “The Iron Bull appears to be merely a Qunari.”

“That’s what he _wants_ you to think,” Kubide says. She shakes her head. “If he’s here, then I’ll bet you that the _second_ I get that Breach closed, I get a Qunari-made axe to my fucking head.”

“You need have no fear on that point,” Solas says. “I would not allow that.”

“I don’t think you would. I trust you, Solas,” she says, smiling a little.

It’s a warm feeling, knowing she has friends.

And all of them _are_ becoming friends, at least a little. It’s hard not to, when they’re all drinking and eating together, fighting demons and bandits together, hiking through shit weather and bad terrain together. It isn’t like they all agree on anything, of course. Every time Kubide makes a decision it seems to upset _somebody_. But she does a fair job keeping this ragtag bunch together. Experience serves her well. She’s a little worried about what happens if Commander Rutherford asks her to take personal command of the larger forces, but…that’s a problem for tomorrow Kubide.

Kubide’s not sure when she accepted that leading this whole mess is her job, but there’s no turning back now.

-

“Wouldn’t touch that if I were you,” the Iron Bull says.

Solas looks up from the large jar of bright red, acrid-scented pigment. “Should it concern me?” he asks.

The Iron Bull, sitting on a log and polishing his overlong axe, shrugs. “Vitaar doesn’t play well with anybody but Qunari like me.”

“ _Or_ me,” Kubide says, ducking out of her tent.

“Is it poisonous?” Solas asks.

“Yeah,” the Iron Bull says.

Kubide leans past Solas to pick up the jar. “This one’s mostly blightwasp venom.”

“ _Blightwasp_ —” Solas stares, aghast, as Kubide produces a brush and copper mirror, both made delicate in her hands.

“Yeah, blightwasp,” the Iron Bull says enthusiastically. He gestures at his own face, patterned in white. “This one’s rashvine. Hoping to get deathroot soon. And I’ve seen them made with gurgut, wyvern, deepstalker—on Seheron, we found some real weird crap to mix up and wear. The more dangerous the better!”

“Makes your skin like iron,” Lieutenant Aclassi puts in helpfully. “Hard enough to turn a sword. Always wanted to try it, but the chief says no.”

“I like you better not poisoned,” the Iron Bull says. “But I’m honored you want to look like me.”

“ _No one_ wants to look like you.”

“Hey!”

Solas ignores them. Whatever mission they are here to accomplish in the Hinterlands could have been done without having to share a camp with the vulgar and rambunctious Chargers. Perhaps it is the presence of a fellow Qunari that Kubide finds reassuring—even the Iron Bull’s professed vocation does not seem to prevent a certain fellow feeling.

Observing Kubide’s swift application of vitaar is far more interesting. Horizontal teardrops over both eyes, points extending back to her temples. A line down the bridge of her nose, a line on each side of her jaw. Six dots in a line under each eye. Parallel lines curving up her horns. A sharp line on each cheekbone, smudged down her cheeks.

“Like what you see?” she asks, raising her eyes from the mirror.

The answer to that is _no_. Solas has a long-held dislike of designs on the face. It is not vallaslin, of course—the patterns the Qunari use are _nothing_ like those the Dalish have retained—but this blood-red paint is _disturbing_. What kind of thinking creatures deliberately paint themselves in _poison_?

Still, he will be tactful.

“I understand now why you refuse armor.”

She laughs out loud. “Who needs fucking plate mail when you can just bring a jar of paint?”

He smiles slightly. Her laughter is infectious. “Hence your dislike of shirts.”

“Vitaar is quieter. And less heavy. Showing off is just an extra benefit,” Kubide says, grinning and stretching, a deliberate show that draws wolf-whistles from the Chargers and another bright laugh from her. Solas does not look. “So just let me finish my body and we’ll get moving. Bull, you want to do my back?”

-

Another day, another shepherd saved.

“We must have helped every farmer in the Hinterlands,” Blackwall comments.

“You don’t approve?” Kubide asks.

He shakes his head. “Far from it, my lady. You prove yourself to have great honor.”

“If a Grey Warden thinks I’m honorable, I’m really doing something right,” she says, clapping him on the shoulder. He nods, stern expression never wavering.

They really must have saved every farmer. It frustrates Cullen and Leliana, Kubide knows, though Josephine takes the optimistic outlook that it will increase the reputation of the Inquisition. Yet, tiring as it is to be always on the move, Kubide can’t bear to just…leave people. She’s been protecting people for years as the war between mages and Templars dragged on. To see these people _still_ cut adrift, losing livelihoods and families, can’t be borne.

And she’s not just a mercenary anymore. She’s the _Herald of Andraste_. She can _help_.

The shepherd family tries to press payment on her. Kubide refuses. “You’ll need that soon,” she says. “The Inquisition will be all right.”

Going back to Haven, they run into brigands on the road. Again. It’s a quick fight. Carrying their loot back to the village from which they took it is a longer job, and they stay overnight in someone’s barn. Cassandra grumbles about the wasted time and Varric about the accommodations. Kubide ignores them both.

Upon return to Haven, Kubide’s attention is taken by the problems with new fortifications on the walls—the makeshift crane they were using to lift the huge logs into place broke. The foreman should be asking Cullen about the next step. Instead, she’s come to Kubide. And _she_ should be passing off the question, but why bother? It’s not like she can’t handle putting some logs in place.

“Cassandra, give our report for me,” she says. She hands her gear off to Blackwall to take back to her room and follows the foreman to the wall. The vitaar on her cheeks is starting to itch, but it can wait.

“Thank you, Herald,” the woman says. “What do you think about fixing the crane?”

Kubide eyes the broken beams. The smell of fresh wood rises from them where they cracked. “I’m no engineer,” she says, “but that looks…permanent.”

The foreman sighs. “Lifting all this by hand… _shit_.”

“I’ll help,” Kubide offers. The foreman looks up at her, startled, and Kubide shrugs. “Get your strongest people out here and tell us what to do.”

Disapproval radiates off Cullen and Mother Giselle later. They don’t _say_ anything, but it’s clear they’re displeased with their figurehead getting her hands dirty. Kubide doesn’t care.

They gave her power. They made her the Herald of Andraste. Now they can just fucking deal with how she chooses to use it.

-

“You think you can stop the Veil from tearing further with these,” Kubide says, examining the artifact resting on the table.

“Yes,” Solas says. “I would need many, assuming that they have survived.”

Cassandra peers at the artifact. “Considering the condition of this one, I doubt many have.”

Solas chooses his next words carefully. “In the past,” he says, “I believe that this area was the site of much interaction with the Fade. I theorize that the characteristics of the Veil in this place have contributed to the size and strength of the Breach. Under that assumption, it is reasonable to assume that, in secure places, more artifacts remain.”

“You’ve yet to be wrong in your assumptions,” Kubide says, straightening. Her horns smack the low ceiling and she winces. “ _Ow!_ Shit…make a list of likely places, if you can speculate on where they are, and we’ll track them down when we can.”

“It will be on your desk tomorrow,” he says, inclining his head, and smiling. “I thank you for your time, Herald.”

Kubide and Cassandra exit, already talking of something about which Solas does not care. He turns back to the artifact. It can be called that now, after so many years, which is almost comical. The image of this small mechanism in his mind is still one that is polished and shining, sparkling with innate energy. These were prototypes, miniature test subjects that would go beneath the notice of anyone watching. Easily explained as nothing more than toys.

Now, they are some of the only remaining pieces of his original research. Or, at least, some of the only _physical_ pieces. In order to proceed, a contingency against the loss of his orb, he is going to have reverse-engineer them.

Without help.

And without anyone noticing what he is doing.

“I would like to go back to sleep now,” Solas mutters to the empty room.

He picks up paper and pen and begins to list the locations where more of the artifacts will likely be, checking what he remembers against a modern map. Of course, the landscape has dramatically changed: cities collapsed, forests razed, new lakes flooded. It is a _great_ deal of guesswork.

The search will be greatly helped by having the Herald on his side. Between her sword and her resources, Solas should have little enough trouble uncovering what he seeks. She is also uneducated in magic, and unlikely to ask inconvenient questions of him.

Solas does feel a slight pang of conscience, in thinking of this deception.

But it is necessary, so he puts the discomfort aside.

-

In between roaming around the Hinterlands, frantically reading an etiquette book Josephine politely and pointedly offered her, getting used to the constant pain of the Anchor, and fumbling her way through pretending to be devout and chosen by Andraste, Kubide has little free time over the first months after the Conclave explosion. Haven is no haven for her, though at least here she can hang up her sword. She has time to sit down and drink at the tavern, get to know her new companions, meet the soldiers slowly arriving day by day to the Inquisition’s banner.

They also expect her to attend Chantry services. Leliana, especially, insists that Kubide be in the front row. In the interest of not getting in trouble, Kubide does as she says and goes. Not rolling her eyes is a… _challenge_. It’s not like she grew up Andrastian. As a kid, hearing Chantry sisters inform Mama that Kubide wouldn’t be allowed to attend lessons with other kids, because she was “not one of the Maker’s children,” was a _real_ turn-off. Nothing she learned later changed her opinion on the matter.

Every time Mother Giselle starts to wax poetic about Andraste “choosing” Kubide, it’s all she can do not to laugh. If Andraste _did_ choose her (and Kubide still isn’t sold that she did), that doesn’t change Kubide’s opinions. She’s the Herald because someone needs to be, not because she believes in the righteousness of the Maker.

To get away from her responsibilities, the easiest excuse is training. Summer in Haven is warm enough to be outside, but not so hot that it’s painful. Kubide isn’t sure she needs _more_ work right now, but this kind of work tends to put thought out of her head. Actually, it’s kind of _nice_ to have time to focus on specific things, instead of the slapdash workout of the road. There’s no shortage of heavy barrels to push and logs to flip. Plenty of open space is available for calisthenics. She’s perfectly capable of practicing good stances and motions with a sword on her own, and people—Blackwall, Bull, Cassandra, even Cullen—are willing to practice with her.

Of course, there are eyes on her, even though she sticks to the edge of the settlement. When are there _not_ people watching? She ignores them, though. From a certain perspective, it’s good for people to see their Herald keeping fit and strong. Nothing wrong with watching.

“You’ve inspired the children,” Cassandra comments one evening over dinner.

Kubide looks up from the dark bread and pottage on her plate, startled out of wondering how many onions went into this for it to smell _that_ strongly. “What?”

“Have you not noticed?” Cassandra smiles, a rare expression. “There are some children in Haven. I have seen them trying to imitate you.”

“Oh,” Kubide says. Her face feels a bit hot.

She pays more attention and finds that there is, indeed, a group of small human kids following her around. Some questions reveal that they’re the only ones in Haven, all siblings. There are five, ranging in age from four to twelve, and have the habit of watching Kubide very frequently.

One day, she’s halfway through a set of push-ups when she notices them again. One of the middle kids is trying (and failing) to imitate her, while the others giggle. Kubide watches for a moment—the form’s bad. The kid will get hurt if they keep falling like that.

Stretching, Kubide stands and goes over to them. They all freeze, looking up at her. The tallest is barely up to her waist, and the smallest to her knee.

“Let me show you how to do that right,” she says.

The kid’s face lights up with a gap-toothed grin. “Yes please!”

“Is it safe?” the eldest asks, squinting up at her suspiciously.

“Show me too,” another of the kid says, reaching up on tiptoes and tugging on Kubide’s hand with incredible boldness.

“Right,” Kubide says, wondering what her life has come to, “follow my lead.”

-

“Where is the Herald?” Solas asks, paying a rare visit to the tavern. He has questions that cannot wait for later.

“Off with the kids,” the Iron Bull says. He gestures vaguely. “Pretty cute.”

Solas just looks at the Iron Bull for a moment, wondering if he is joking, but clearly not. Mildly confounded, Solas takes his leave, heading off in the indicated direction. What did he _miss_?

Kubide is, indeed, with the children. Dressed for training, sitting on a log and encouraging a few giggling, muddy children as they try to do calisthenics. A very small child is perched on her shoulder, holding onto her horn and laughing.

She looks up and sees Solas, beckoning him over. “Something urgent?” she says, looking up at him.

“I…suppose this can wait?” Solas hazards.

The children have stopped, all staring at him. The tallest pushes the others behind her, not particularly subtly. Andrastians, even the young ones, are terribly predictable.

“I think we’d better go,” the tallest says coolly.

Kubide glances at Solas, a bit apologetic. She understands what’s happening here. Did the children have the same reaction to her? “Andrea, wait,” she says.

The girl—Andrea, apparently—scowls. “He’s a _mage_ ,” she says.

“And entirely harmless,” Kubide says.

“An _apostate_.”

“The resident expert on _this_ ,” Kubide says, lifting her marked hand. The Anchor glows brightly. “I think Solas would agree he’s much more interested in this than in spirits and demons.”

Not entirely true, but for the sake of the charade… “Quite,” Solas says. “The Herald’s mark is of great interest to me. I am here to assist her.”

“With the hole in the sky?” one of the smaller children whispers.

“He’s the only one with half a clue what’s happening. The best mage we have.” Kubide claps him on the shoulder and pauses before amending: “The _only_ mage we have.”

The second-smallest child pipes up, “Have you fought _demons_?”

Kubide gives him a _look_ , which clearly means that Solas is not to delve into the mysteries of the Fade with impressionable children. He sighs. “Yes, a few times.”

“Tell us, then,” one of the muddy boys challenges.

“Do tell, Solas,” Kubide says, grinning.

He really _should_ be going. But the thought of having an audience, even one very small, very human, and very Andrastian, is still better than being shut up in the tiny library all day. Solas sits down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Medieval European warriors definitely did general exercises to increase physical fitness. Wrestling, throwing rocks, climbing, vaulting (to practice getting on and off a horse), and calisthenics were common ways, other than actually going out and fighting, to keep in good condition. There are many medieval treatises and manuals that reference this, and also illustrations in books that show the same. For someone who needs to be in peak condition so she can throw down with a pride demon, you can bet that working out is a good idea.


	5. Chapter 5

Kubide takes a deep breath. This is the same thing as talking to the Valo-Kas before a job. Standing on a crate so everyone can see her, talking loudly, the whole thing.

Except these are the newly-arrived human soldiers, who are looking at her like she’s an ogre.

If she can get them to stop _that_ , it will be a greater victory than closing the damn Breach.

“Look,” she says, “Cullen’s asked me to come out here and order you around. I know you’d rather I not, though.”

A few mutters of agreement.

“So I’m not going to do that,” Kubide goes on. “I’m not here to command you.”

They’re glancing at each other now. A few whispers, more curious than angry.

Kubide points off toward the Breach. The words taste bad, but she says them anyway: “I was chosen to deal with _that_ , not to lead a fucking army.”

“You’re our commander, Herald,” a captain says. Older woman, hard eyes, Ferelden accent. _Definitely_ fought the Blight, but her mismatched armor says she’s not a professional soldier. “We’ll hear your orders.”

“I’m a mercenary like you,” Kubide says, “or I _was_.”

The captain folds her arms. “Then what are you doing up there?”

Kubide holds up her hand. The Anchor glows brightly. “I’m here to ask you to stay,” she says. “It’ll be a dangerous job—you’ve all _seen_ the demons. But I can’t get there alone.”

One of the soldiers—Orlesian, looks like a professional, probably a deserter—shouts out, “So you’ll stand behind us and wait for us to die for you?”

“I’ll fight beside you,” Kubide says, folding her arms. “Whatever the Breach throws at us, I won’t leave you. _Any_ of you.”

“That’s right!” one of the Conclave veterans says from the sidelines. “She’s out there with us!”

“Got between me and a demon,” another chimes in.

Kubide waits a moment for the chatter to die down. “That’s all I’ve got. We’re in this together. Until the Breach is sealed.”

“Hear hear!” someone cheers, and the cheer is taken up by others.

On impulse, Kubide shouts, “Just so all of you know, they _still_ haven’t fucking paid me for the Conclave job!” She grins. “So I’ll make sure _you_ all get paid on time!”

“Pay the Herald!” someone yells, to laughter.

Kubide climbs off the crate as the soldiers disperse.

That went better than expected.

-

Months have passed, autumn is well underway, and the Inquisition has made little progress in its appointed task.

It would help if Corypheus would appear, or if they could find some assistance in actually _sealing_ the Breach. The Inquisition’s forces are too limited to storm the Breach itself, when it is so busy spitting out demons, and when there is so little magical knowledge free in this world they cannot merely undo it at a distance.

Solas has enough agents left—though many were killed in the Temple of Sacred Ashes—that he knows the rebel mages will soon be brought to heel by Corypheus. After years of war, the Grand Enchanter is at risk of losing what forces are left to her. Besides, for whatever the reason (Solas _still_ suspects enchantment), she already pledged assistance to the Venatori without knowing they served Corypheus. If the Inquisition is smart, they will reach out to the mages before they can be lost. Pitiful their powers may be, limited their understanding is, but they will be able to assist in ways that no one else might.

Unable to go forward, Solas continues to follow Kubide around the mountains and the Hinterlands. Her control of the Anchor is growing by the day, which is promising. By the time Solas can reach the orb, Kubide will be an effective key. She has yet to attempt to open rifts herself. Solas is certain, however, that she will be able to do so.

He is coming to appreciate the other companions. They are mere shades of the people he once knew, of course—Sera, in particular, is a tragedy. What might she have become, in another time? Solas hopes that _she_ survives what is to come, that she might discover herself anew.

For all their mortality, though, they are good and honorable. They follow Kubide with loyalty born of common purpose. In all their disagreements, she still looks on them as friends. That seems infectious: even the most aloof, Vivienne and Cassandra, cannot escape the growing camaraderie.

Still, Solas keeps himself apart as much as he can. It would not do to grow too attached.

-

Mages or Templars?

The stupidest question which has yet faced Kubide.

Yet it’s also, somehow, the simplest.

“I do not understand how Templars, no matter how mighty, will be able to actually _seal the Breach_ ,” Kubide says.

“That’s—you _cannot_ ally with the rebels,” Cullen says.

“I agree with the Herald,” Josephine puts in.

Kubide shrugs. “Both options are shit,” she says. “Both have blood on their hands.”

It’s not _entirely_ her opinion. She’s never _liked_ Templars. Too many bullies. Too much smiting. Too much preaching that horns and claws and sharp teeth make a person _less_ in the Maker’s sight. And some of the ex-saarebas got pretty fired up about that manifesto going around for a while, talking about how mages deal with the same shit _everywhere_ , and whoever wrote this had it right.

If they were comparing the Templars to the Arvaraad, they knew what they were talking about. Once, Kubide killed a Qunari keeper who came looking for a wayward charge, chains in hand. She held Basari, who couldn’t stop screaming and clawing at his scarred mouth, through the aftermath of the fight. She heard the stories of the other mages of the Valo-Kas. And if the Templars were like _that_ to southern mages…well.

But her advisors don’t want to hear _that_ from their Herald.

“So you’d side with those who sanctioned the killing of innocents?” Cullen snaps.

“Tell me which side _hasn’t_ killed innocents, Commander Rutherford,” Kubide says.

“A mage set off the entire war,” Cullen says, glaring at her. She can smell him sweating—he’s _pissed_. “They became abominations!”

“And Templars executed anyone suspected of hiding rebels and killed mage children,” Kubide says. She plants her hands on the table and leans over it, meeting his eyes. “Is that enough innocent fucking blood to _count_?”

“You fought for mages, didn’t you?” Leliana asks quietly from the corner.

“I fought _against_ both sides,” Kubide snarls, looking over her shoulder. “I was hired to protect people caught in the crossfire. I played escort for Chantry Sisters _and_ Tranquil mages. I saw it all.”

Josephine’s brow is just slightly furrowed. “Then your choice…”

“ _Purely_ pragmatic,” Kubide says. She straightens to her full height, not bothering to look down, forcing _them_ to look up and meet her eyes. “We go to Redcliffe Castle because the mages have the best chance of permanently sealing the Breach. That’s our purpose here. Don’t forget it.”

They seem too afraid to ask more questions.

-

After Redcliffe, the Herald rarely speaks of the undone future.

“It was _bad_ ,” she says, “but we stopped it. No harm done.”

Solas wonders just _what_ Kubide saw there. He, of course, does not remember—Kubide and Dorian were dragged through a portal to another time and, mere moments later, fell out of another one, battered and bruised, but victorious. Solas is a little irked he missed out on seeing what he would have become, in that other world.

The haunted expression Kubide wears every time she sees the companions who were there, though, informs him that it would have been a truly terrible sight.

He watches at a distance while Kubide works herself to the bone for the Inquisition. She rarely sleeps through the night. At every opportunity she is out on the road, recruiting soldiers, fighting their opponents, saving the innocent. She does not drink with her friends now, or spend time on idle conversation.

“The mages will be here soon,” Kubide says, when Sera questions her brutal and unforgiving pace. “There’s no more time to waste.”

It is familiar. Solas has lived this before. There is never enough time, at the end of the world.

A shining example of what the pressure is doing to the Inquisitor: rumors explode in Orlais that the Inquisition orchestrated this whole disaster. Solas watches at a distance as Kubide loses her temper over the matter, actually _shouting_ at the messenger who brings her the news. The volume and viciousness of it is shocking—Solas finds himself unaccountably disappointed to see it from her, though she apologizes quickly. He has come to expect better.

During one of their evening discussions, after hearing that the Anchor is hurting her badly as her load increases, he decides to broach the subject directly.

“You will have no time at all, if you work yourself to your death before we make it to the Breach,” he points out, watching her list slightly in her chair, visibly exhausted.

Kubide’s head snaps up and she glares at him. Her lip curls and there is a flash of sharp teeth. A streak of vitaar curves forgotten under one eye. “Fuck _that_. You don’t know what’s waiting if we fail.”

“True,” Solas says, striving for equanimity, “but I can guess that we will all experience it sooner than later, if you kill yourself of overwork.”

She laughs, loud and harsh, covering her face with her hands. “Solas, you don’t know what this is like,” she says, voice rough. “The _world_ is relying on me. My death isn’t—it wouldn’t fucking _matter,_ as long as the world gets to live.”

For a moment, he is tempted to snap that he _does_ know what this is like.

He restrains himself, and is silent instead.

Kubide’s shoulders shake. She is no longer laughing. And she does not speak again.

“Rest,” Solas says quietly. “Sleep, Herald. We need you alive.”

She stands up fast enough to send her chair falling backward with a small crash. He stays in place and watches her walk out the door, never looking at him. The door slams behind her.

The next day, she sleeps in.

-

The mages will arrive at Haven tomorrow.

Kubide has spent the entire damn day finding barracks for them, a space which won’t offend anyone or cause quarrels with the rest of the forces, and explaining her choices over and over and _over_ to people who have no interest in listening to her. If ordinary days leave her tired, this one’s got her _exhausted_. Adding injury to insult, the Anchor _hurts_. Really hurts, like she shoved her hand into a fire.

She sits outside Haven on a woodpile cleared of snow, looking out into the midnight dark. Far below, in the mountain valley, the faintest suggestion of lights shows where travelers move on the road. It’s cold, the scent of the air crisp, and she pulls her cloak tighter around her. Cold or not, this is more bearable than sitting in council listening to Mother Giselle criticize her decision _again_.

Footsteps in the snow behind her, so quiet that she wouldn’t have heard them without the silence of the night. The slight hint of paper and ink, and overpowering lightning: Solas. “If you’re here to yell at me, I _wouldn’t_ advise it,” she says.

“Far from it,” he says. “I am here to congratulate you on a wise choice.”

Kubide turns. In the silver starlight, he’s only a silhouette. “You’d be the first.”

“Do you regret your decision?”

She looks back out into the dark. “There’s no time for regret. I made the call. That’s it.”

More footsteps. A moment later, Solas sits down a respectable distance from her on the woodpile. The smell of musty books gets much stronger. “I do not believe the consequences will be so terrible.”

“And _you_ can see the future?” Kubide asks. She pauses. “That was rude, I’m sorry.”

“If I had the ability to see the future,” Solas says, “ _many_ things would be different.”

“I’ll drink to that.”

“As it is,” he says reflectively, “there is no time for regret.”

Rising wind ruffles Kubide’s hair. The trees whisper. She doesn’t speak. Neither does Solas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technically, as far as everyone in this fic is concerned, Anders is very much dead. 
> 
> As far as Kubide’s total worldstate is concerned, he’s very much alive.
> 
> Go see “each venture is a new beginning” to catch up on that part of all this. It won’t ever intersect directly with this story, but it DID happen in the background and some of the subtler aspects of that series have a minor impact on the story. For instance: the fates of several other potential Inquisitors. The Trevelyan mage joined Anders. (Trevelyan warrior, um, might have died at the Conclave. Haven’t quite figured him out yet.) The Cadash rogue was very busy managing lyrium trade during the war, and wasn’t sent to the Conclave. Cadash warrior was off fighting beside the Templars. The Lavellan mage AND Lavellan rogue were dealing with some other related events. 
> 
> You’ll also hear some mentions of events in that fic with Varric and Hawke. But, again, no direct intersection, and I hope they're subtle enough not to derail anything.


	6. Chapter 6

Haven burns.

Solas watches at a distance, people fleeing around him, rushing into the dark. Above, he watches the dragon swoop, turning, landing by the trebuchets. From so far away he can only see the smallest shapes, the figure that must be Kubide facing the shape of Corypheus, moving in the firelight as the dragon watches.

He can see the trebuchet firing clearly, though, and the avalanche even more so.

A mountain falls on Kubide.

They rendezvous at a safe distance as a blizzard roars over the mountains. Some had the presence of mind to take tents, supplies, as the town evacuated. There is not enough. But the sick and injured can be out of the wind, and they can build fires in the shelter of the cliffs. They will live through the night. What comes next is unknown.

The children survived. Many others did not. The people of Haven grieve their homes and their families. Solas feels as if he should be considering his next move, determining what he can do without the Anchor, but instead he finds himself moved to join the grieving for all the lost people. Such an unnecessary loss of life, a pointless tragedy. There was no _meaning_ to it. Shades or no, the dead deserved better.

And then Kubide stumbles out of the dark. She is near her death of cold, bright eyes almost frozen shut, heart nearly stopped. But she lives, apparently out of sheer stubborn will, and by the time the dawn comes she is on her feet again.

All of the believers sing a hymn, of course, to the rising sun. Solas waits it out patiently. Kubide, standing in the middle of it all, meets his eyes over the heads of the faithful and offers a wry smile. He cannot blame her for going along with this. People have done stranger things than this in the name of hope. Solas should know.

“Where do we go?” Kubide asks, after calling a council of her companions. They came, of course, to stand beside their indomitable leader. The pull, even for Solas, was irresistible. Her survival has conferred a kind of awe on her, a veneration that is _extremely_ unsettling.

She is just a mortal.

Mortals should never be looked upon as divine.

Solas does not raise the issue.

“There is a place,” he says instead, thinking of days long past, “a fortress in these mountains. It is a long journey, but if you wish the Inquisition to live, it is what I recommend.”

“I like the idea of having a roof over our heads,” Dorian says.

“A defensible position is paramount,” Cassandra says.

Sera nods. “I say we do it. Get out of this shite weather, at least.”

The Iron Bull is watching him closely. “We got any reason to believe it’s where you say it is?”

“Only my word,” Solas says.

Kubide nods, looking around at the assembled companions. “I trust his word,” she says. “We’ll go.”

-

As the crow flies, it would be a mere three days to Skyhold at an easy pace, but they _can’t_ move as the crow flies. There are no easy passes from Haven to Skyhold. The Frostbacks are harsh and dangerous. Though it’s only late autumn, the snows are already heavy and the winds harsh. Many people are sick from the altitude, struggling to breathe, dizzy and disoriented as they move at the forced-march pace. It was tolerable at rest, but exertion makes it worse, especially for people from the lowlands. Even the most athletic struggle, carrying heavy loads and dragging sledges.

“It’ll be almost a month to your fortress,” Cullen says, as they huddle around a campfire on the second night out of Haven looking at a map drawn in the snow. Kubide will never say anything bad about his map habit again: this is incredibly accurate. “Best prepare for the worst.”

Josephine, a genius with logistics, marshals her resources to organize and move their cold, bedraggled refugees through the mountains. Luckily, more supplies arrive before they get moving. Corypheus didn’t cut their supply chain, since he was relying on a swift single strike to end the Inquisition. They have pack mules, and even some brontos, to get things across the mountains, and blankets and tents so they don’t all freeze to death. After a long discussion, it’s decided that no one will try to get out of the mountains. It will take just as long, and be much more dangerous for a small group than for a thousand people traveling together. The weather is shit, but this is a determined bunch. They’ll make it.

Kubide _does_ notice that she and Bull are suffering a lot less than anyone else from the height and cold. It’s miserable for them, of course, but humans and elves are struggling just to breathe half the time. The dwarves are worst off—many of them are _sick_. But neither she nor Bull are feeling like that. A little tired, but not bad.

So she puts that to work. Kubide carries what she can—supplies, the injured, the sick, the children. She also has to scout ahead, going with a few of her companions to meet with Leliana’s advance guard, and to help clear the paths the Inquisition will take. That and she has to escort Solas, to make sure he doesn’t get killed by a bear or wander off a cliff while looking for his landmarks.

“At least nobody’s _died_ ,” she says, pushing through branches ahead of Solas as they head through a stand of pines, looking for some special rock that points the way. There’s the smell of some animal—probably wolverine, it _stinks_ —but it’s faint enough that Kubide’s pretty sure it was just passing through.

“A small mercy,” he says. “I was…concerned.”

She stops, holding aside a heavy branch to let him duck under. “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I lost someone to this shit.”

Solas pauses, looking up at her. “You will lose many more before this fight is over.”

“If I lose soldiers in battle,” Kubide says slowly, “that’s way different than losing someone because they froze to death climbing a mountain.”

“They’ll both have died for you,” Solas says. “Is it _truly_ different?”

“Yes,” Kubide says.

“Why?”

She doesn’t have an answer for that.

-

Night has long since fallen when Solas and Kubide return to camp one day. Someone has done them the courtesy of putting up a tent. Typically Solas would go to sleep in the tent he customarily shares with Dorian and Varric, but tonight the wind is bitter and it is late enough that waking them would be discourteous.

“Come on,” Kubide says, getting into the tent.

Solas follows.

Neither of them do more than take off their heaviest coats, and Kubide takes off her boots. This tent would be barely big enough to comfortably accommodate two people of Solas’ height, let alone of Kubide’s. She ducks, to avoid catching her horns in the fabric, but knocks an elbow into Solas instead.

“Fuck…sorry,” she says, drawing back.

“There is no need to apologize,” Solas says, spreading out his bedroll.

Kubide does the same, practically pressing herself to the side of the tent. “I don’t want to make this any more fucking awkward,” she mutters.

Solas looks at her in the thin shaft of moonlight slipping through the tent flap. Her wide eyes catch the light, and her white hair looks like silver. “I see nothing to make me uncomfortable.”

“You’re _so_ polite,” Kubide says. She laughs quietly. “Get some rest.”

After a quarter of an hour, he is not sleeping.

The tent is frigid, especially as the wind blows in what will likely become a snowstorm by the next day. Kept awake by the cold, Solas cannot help dwelling on what will come: they are perhaps halfway to Skyhold. The last time he saw it was more than three thousand years ago. What will it be _like_ , to be a guest in a place that was his home?

“You’re keeping me awake,” Kubide says sleepily. “Cold?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Get over here,” she says.

In this weather, it would be idiotic to disobey. Solas shifts over and, though he expects it, is still slightly startled when Kubide’s arm wraps around him. The hand bearing the Anchor, gloved, rests beside him, close enough that Solas can hear the Anchor’s faint song. His back is pressed to her broad chest, and there is something soothing in her slow, deep breathing. It is also incredibly warm.

He wonders, as sleep finally claims him, what she dreams about.

-

Kubide hasn’t slept this well in a long time. When she was _very_ young she slept with Mama and Da. She used to share a tent with her friends in the Valo-Kas, often snuggled up close enough to share warmth and the security of company. Since the Conclave, though, she’s slept entirely alone, in a bed way too fucking small for her.

This tent is too small, but it has someone else in it. That makes it better. Not perfect, but _better_.

For all that they’re still climbing through sharp, deadly mountains, and having to fight bears and occasional roaming darkspawn, and getting snow in their boots, Kubide at least gets to look forward to a good night’s sleep. She doesn’t mind having prickly, aloof Solas sleeping with her. In fact, he’s a lot _less_ prickly and aloof at night.

They talk, curled up together in the winter dark, trying to stay warm. Mundane things, mostly, about the weather and the path they’re breaking and how he’s starting to like tea out of desperation for a hot drink. Sometimes of other things, though. Solas will tell her about things he’s seen in the Fade, the ancient roads that once wound through these mountains, and the people who traveled them. After a _really_ rough day, Kubide ends up unloading half her worries about what happens next while Solas listens.

One morning, she wakes very early. The air is crisp and cold, and a thin lance of early dawn light slips into the tent. _Right_ onto her face.

The complete silence says that no one else is yet moving, which means Kubide doesn’t have to get up. She tips her head a bit, to get the light off her face, and closes her eyes. Save for the tip of her nose, she’s warm and comfortable, a rare luxury these days.

Solas is still asleep, completely still under her arm except his steady breathing. His back is warm against her chest. The smell of lightning is _strong_ around him, overpowering the sweat of exertion they’re all wearing these days. It occurs to Kubide as she wakes up a bit more that his slender hand is curled around hers. It’s _much_ more familiar than any of her other companions have ever been with her. More familiar than _he’s_ been with her.

It’s a bit surprising that she’s not alarmed about that.

More alarming is the deep and unexpected desire to stay like this longer than they should.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve spent half my life living at high altitude (between 6,000/7,200 feet or 1,839/2,200 meters). Many people who come up this high out of low areas get sick. Dizzy, nauseated, exhausted, and struggling to breathe. That’s not to speak of anything higher, like Skyhold. The fortress sits at or above the tree line in the Frostback Mountains, which is an altitude of about 11,500 feet/3,505 meters. That is…frankly impossibly high up. 
> 
> High-altitude populations have to live in those altitudes for generations in order to adapt to the thin-oxygen environment. I’m acclimated living here, but I know people who went away for a few months only to come back and be sick again. Altitude sickness hits everyone differently, but it’s a fair bet that anyone coming from Orlais or Ferelden into the Frostbacks would be in for a lot of suffering. A long-term Haven resident less so—Haven is definitely below the tree line, I’m guessing closer to 7,000 feet/2,100 meters or so, but that’s still ridiculously high up. 
> 
> A brief note on Qunari biology: pretty sure they’re well-adapted for extreme environments, especially altitude. Your average Qunari isn’t going to suffer TOO hard, though Skyhold in the long term is probably…pushing it.


	7. Chapter 7

Those first weeks at Skyhold are strange for Solas.

It is disorienting, to be in a place at once familiar and utterly alien. The shape of the peaks has not changed, over thousands of years—even the ravages of so much time cannot fully reshape the stone of these immemorial mountains. Yet Tarasyl’an Te’las, the place he called home is gone, its silver pinnacles left only in his memory. In his dreams Solas walks among the shadows of what this place has been, hears the chorus of voices who have left their mark on the world. Spirits flock to Skyhold, attracted by the thin Veil and the number of people arriving at the fortress: Justice, Courage, Honor, Love. They know so very much, and from them Solas learns the stories of Skyhold, its history while he slept.

As a strategically acceptable and aesthetically appealing point, Skyhold has been used a dozen or more times over the years. Its current castle, a fine example of Ferelden architecture from the late Steel Age, was a misbegotten attempt at conquest by a would-be warlord, who spent so much on the fortress that he could not hire soldiers. It is built on the ruins of an Alamarri keep, a swiftly-razed Orlesian stronghold, a dwarven trading post, and Dalish holy grounds, to name a few.

Now it is the home of the Inquisition.

He rarely sees their newly appointed Inquisitor more than in passing. She has much to do, dealing with the arrival of more soldiers and diplomats and scouts, called to the Inquisition’s banner. New watchtowers are built in the valley, and spaces cleared for spring fields. Supply lines and soldiers will turn to Skyhold in the spring. Roads must be cleared and bridges built, even though it is the dead of winter. The area must also be secured against threats of animals, bandits, and darkspawn, _and_ against Corypheus. In addition, it is apparent that managing the Anchor’s new activity—the ability to open rifts, which Solas correctly predicted—requires her attention.

Kubide does not take Solas along for a while. He approves. It would be unseemly for the Inquisitor to play favorites when the Inquisition is so new and fragile. So he stands back and watches her go out with every combination of companions at her side, earning their loyalty and trust. Carrying herself with a pride she did not show in Haven, she is embracing the new role of Inquisitor in a way she never embraced the title of “Herald”. She is leaving what she was behind her.

Something about that unnerves him.

-

Heroes always get castles, in stories. Vast strongholds at once fortresses and homes, where people feast and joust and…do whatever else it is heroes do. Things always get vague at that point.

Kubide isn’t a kid. She’s been around enough castles to know that they’re nothing like the stories. They’re a lot of _work._ Once, when the Valo-Kas were _really_ desperate for funds, Shokrakar hired out her strongest people to some Ferelden Bann who needed some work done on his ancestral stronghold.

Worst fucking job _ever_.

But it taught Kubide a lot about the truth of castles. Mostly, it’s not feasting and jousting. It’s endless repairs, tight corridors, and badly-positioned garderobes.

Still, there was a little part of her that hoped _this_ would be different. That the shining castle she saw when she came over that mountain would really be like the tale she’s somehow tripped into. Even knowing what being a ‘hero’ has been like so far, maybe, _just maybe_ —

“If I never have to do this again, it’ll still be too fucking soon,” Kubide says, sitting down on the floor next to Blackwall.

He grunts and hands her a waterskin. “They probably wouldn’t ask questions if the Inquisitor decided she wasn’t doing this.”

Kubide takes a long, long drink, then stares at the new support beam they _finally_ got into place in what Dorian wants to become a library when all’s said and done. There’s pride in a job well done, of course, but she’s got a splinter in her fucking _shoulder._ “It wouldn’t be right.”

“Especially when you could probably pick up the fucking castle and throw it.”

“You’re too kind.”

Still…despite all the labor, the splinters, and the bone-deep tiredness at the end of each day, Kubide is getting attached to Skyhold. The ancient stone walls never threaten to move. Even though she’s always out, running errands and dealing with demons and generally being up to her elbows in sometimes-literal shit, the narrow corridors are the same every time she comes back.

And if she’s still sleeping on a bedroll because getting beds for anyone, let _alone_ for the seven-foot-tall Inquisitor, is a chore, well…it doesn’t matter. The bedroll is in the same place every night. When the exhaustion gets too much, there’s a room that belongs to _her_ to sleep in _._ When she needs to sit and think about nothing, there’s a door she can close and lock. If the latest piece of correspondence from some Orlesian bastard makes her too angry, she can lock herself in and not risk someone seeing her lose her temper.

It’s _safe_ here. A place to come back to. A place to…

Well.

She won’t call it home yet, but…maybe, someday, she will.

-

Mornings are the strangest time of day.

Solas always suffers some disorientation on waking, as the security and familiarity of the Fade is replaced by the strange discomfort of sunlight and strange air. It is as if he surfaces from an ocean, a fish drawing its first breath on the shore. He forgets where he is, the year, the century.

Depending on the bed he occupies, determining where he is may be easier. In a bed in his Skyhold quarters, alone, it is difficult to find the line between past and present. In a tent, surrounded by others and out in the fresh air, it is easier to place himself in the physical present world.

Today is one of the former days.

For a long time after waking, Solas sits on the floor of his room, attempting to ground himself in the solidity of the stone. It works. A little.

The bitter questions circle around his mind: if he walked out the door now, would he find himself at home? Or would he still be _here_ , where the air tastes of dust?

He goes about his morning in silence. Solas cannot stand to speak to anyone here. None of these mortals with no awareness of the world outside what their own limited sight shows is worth speaking to. They would not— _could not_ —understand.

Even if he told them the truth, and even if they believed him, how could they understand that their history a thousand years forgotten was, to him, _yesterday_?

_Yesterday_ he lived in his own time, among his own people, in his own world. Magic was as natural as breathing. The sky, the sea, the ground—all of it was right _yesterday_. How can Solas shake understanding into these fools? He, and _he alone_ , remembers!

He went to sleep one night and woke up in the wrong world.

Now the time is wrong and slow. The people fumble through life. The world is _broken_ in ways they cannot comprehend. Magic is out of reach and feared, as if it is not the birthright of every elf. The sky is strange. The sea is distorted. The ground is twisted.

By nightfall, Solas can hardly bring himself to sleep. Reasonless fear chills him that, tonight, he will slip out of time again. What will the world become next?

He cannot give up his goal. He _must_ undo his mistake. He must restore what no one else can recall.

Solas will make again the world as it should be.

-

“I’m not really sure this is a wise use of our time,” Kubide says, holding the desk steady. She looks up at Sera, standing on a ladder with nails between her teeth, busily hammering the legs of the desk to the ceiling.

Through the nails, Sera says, “Since when have _you_ been wise?”

Kubide considers. “Never,” she says.

According to Sera, she’s the only one tall enough to do this (which is right) and the only one who won’t be suspected in this prank (which is also probably right). So here Kubide is, helping Sera to turn Cassanda’s new room _literally_ upside down.

“Right,” Sera says, hopping gracefully off the ladder, “you can let go.”

Carefully, Kubide ducks out from under the table. It _does_ stay steady. “She’s not going to like this,” she warns.

Sera giggles. “I _know_. It’ll be great!”

“I’m surprised you didn’t pick Solas.”

“ _Him_?” Sera blows a raspberry. “He’d probably just sigh and take it down. Cassandra’ll get a little pissy but she’ll think it’s funny. In _secret_.”

“Maybe,” Kubide allows. She glances around the room. Bed, chair, and desk nailed to the ceiling, blankets tied to bed, and papers heaped under desk. “That’s it?”

“That’s it!”

Sera departs, skipping away, and Kubide goes the other direction. The idea of Cassandra walking into a room with the furniture nailed to the ceiling is a bit funny, she has to admit. Fuck, Kubide would probably laugh if she walked into _her_ room and found it like that.

Kubide heads for the kitchen. Holding furniture against the ceiling was more of a workout than expected, and she didn’t get breakfast. As she collects a plate of cornmeal cakes and honey, Kubide thinks that it’s been a long time since she got a really good long laugh at something _honestly funny_. Jokes are all well and good, but there’s always something on her mind lately that ends the laughter quickly.

Today’s no exception. In the Great Hall, where the long trestle tables are set up for common meals, she can’t help but overhear the complaints about the salt pork going bad and needing to be thrown away. Kubide saw it—fucking _nasty_ —but they haven’t been able to get any more up here yet. The roads are bad and Ferelden, where they might buy it, is mired in snow so no one’s selling their provisions. With such plain food, and with coffee having run out last week, everyone’s discontented.

Nobody’s complained to her face yet. Still, it’s only a matter of time before Josephine appears at the War Table with an apologetic look and a requisition order that needs Kubide’s signature. And that’ll mean she has to go out and reassure the troops herself that she’s doing what she can to get better provisions up here, which isn’t _bad_ but will take time she doesn’t have to spare.

The potential humor of Sera’s prank, as funny as it was to think about standing under that desk, fades away too fucking quickly.

-

For all its size, Skyhold is still limited in space. As a result, most of the Inquisition has settled in the valley below Skyhold, leaving the fortress reachable only by the crane lift. Only high-ranking members of the Inquisition live here, with guards and staff. Quarters are on the small side, many located within the mural chambers of Skyhold’s massive curtain walls, and very few people spend their hours there. Most find other places to spend their time.

The Iron Bull is always to be found in the tavern, and Blackwall in the stables. Dorian spends dawn to dusk in what passes for a library, Vivienne remains in the Great Hall, and so on and so forth.

Solas finds himself drawn to the lowest level of the rotunda, below the library. The space was built in a way that renders it airy and spacious, but so that noise does not carry too much. When furnishings and rugs are added, conversation will be reduced to a muffled hum. Even now, though, it is tolerable.

The walls are blank stone, not yet plastered, like all walls in Skyhold. In spending so much time here, Solas cannot help but consider what might adorn those walls. Tapestries would be easy to hang, but pieces big enough to cover such space will be ruinously expensive. Their ever-frugal Inquisitor is unlikely to authorize such purchases. Yet plain whitewashed plaster, like that which will cover most interior walls, would be drab.

The idea strikes Solas when he finds himself idly sketching shapes on a piece of scrap paper one day. He has great practice in artistic pursuits. Long ago, his own fortress was adorned with his work.

Once the idea is in his mind he cannot let it go. For a subject, he will choose the Inquisition. It seems fitting, to paint its history on its own walls. Basic pigments, reds and browns and blacks, will not be difficult or expensive to acquire, and with time he might find more refined colors.

When he has mixed the plaster for the preliminary coat and begins to apply it, Solas finds himself breathing easy for the first time in a very long time. The familiarity of the process is soothing. The plaster on his hands feels _right_. The smell is identical to the one he remembers from the past.

And the vision of the finished piece brings his attention to the present. There is only this moment in time. As he works, Solas forgets the past.

The weight on his shoulders is, for a moment, lifted.

-

“Enjoying Skyhold so far?” Kubide asks Dorian, when she stops one day to chat in his library corner.

“It isn’t much,” Dorian says. After all this time, he’s wearing perfume again, a hint of about-to-go-stale oud that instantly tells Kubide when he’s within a hundred feet of her. “Lacking in _everything_ but the view.”

Kubide laughs. “Shit, Dorian, don’t tell me you’re tired of it yet.”

“Far from it,” Dorian says, looking out the window. “It is _ridiculously_ cold, but I rather appreciate the mountains. Quite picturesque.”

Now there’s a word, Kubide muses. It really is that. And, now that people are starting to get used to living all the way up here and most people aren’t just getting sick from walking around, most are able to notice.

She heads down the stairs, careful of how low and narrow they are. None of the humans have issues with them, but all of Skyhold’s stairwells are slightly on the small side for her. She stops at the bottom of the stairs and looks around.

Unlike every other room in Skyhold, the stone walls of the round room haven’t been plastered or whitewashed. On the left wall is a great painted panel, a burst of gold and orange. Kubide approaches to look at it. The suggestion of mountains beneath an explosion in the sky, surrounded by strange eyes. It takes a moment for the shapes to resolve, but at last she recognizes it.

“The Breach,” she murmurs, gazing at the center of the explosion.

“Indeed,” Solas says from behind her. Kubide turns to look at him. He stands by a table, which is covered in jars of paint in the colors of the mural.

“This wasn’t here last night,” she says. “Did you just…paint this overnight?”

Solas crosses the room to stand beside her. The sulfurous smell of lime is all over him and she resists the desire to step away. It’s not exactly _pleasant_. “Yes,” he says. “It is no painting, but a fresco. Pigment applied to wet plaster, much longer-lasting than simple paint on stone. Once the plaster was applied, I had but a few hours to finish the work.”

“You don’t like leaving room for error.”

“I do not,” Solas says.

Kubide looks around at the bare walls. “You’re going to cover this whole room?”

“I am already considering the next panel,” Solas says. “The calling of the Inquisition, I think.”

There are dots of orange paint flecked all over his sleeves. A smudge of white plaster dust on the bridge of his sharp nose. A sudden, inexplicable urge to brush it off seizes Kubide.

She refrains.

“I had no idea you were an artist,” she says instead. “This is beautiful.”

He looks pleased. “I am out of practice.”

“If this is out of practice, I’d like to see you at your best,” Kubide says.

“I will strive to meet your expectations,” Solas says. He meets her gaze and smiles slightly. “In all possible ways.”

The vague, slight suggestiveness in his tone sets Kubide’s mind screeching to a halt. She starts to speak, stops, clears her throat. “Right,” she says, backing away, “I’ll just—leave you to it—”

What in the world would they all think, having their Inquisitor run away from _flirting_?

Assuming, of course, that’s what it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Medieval castles, especially a fortress of Skyhold’s size, took years to build. Conveniently for the Inquisition, upon arrival, Skyhold is mostly intact. It’s not in great shape, but it’s more in the “renovation” stage than “build from the ground up.” Assuming that construction took place at a dedicated pace, it doesn’t seem a stretch that the Inquisition could get it looking decent relatively quickly. 
> 
> “Garderobe” is the term for a castle’s toilet. They occasionally stuck out of walls over the moats, so that waste went away in a relatively sanitary fashion, or had a chute built beneath them through the wall. Take your pick on what Skyhold uses. 
> 
> A mural chamber was a room within a castle’s walls. Narrow hallways, galleries, and stairs could go through the interiors of walls, as well. They were often used for storage, or by soldiers during a siege. Skyhold’s walls look on the order of 20 feet/6 meters thick, maybe more. This means that, according to ME, there are plentiful ways to move about inside, as well as (relatively small) rooms that would serve as personal quarters. A lot of Skyhold’s daily life occurs—literally—inside the walls.
> 
> The procedure for Solas’ frescoes is based on the buon fresco. Using multiple layers of plaster makes the fresco incredibly durable and a part of the wall, rather than just being applied to the wall. The downside to this is that, once the plaster is laid, it MUST be completed as fast as possible, because if it dries…you have to start over from the beginning.


End file.
